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Guest opinion: Speaking out of turn

By Dee Montalbano

Posted:
10/03/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

Neil Diamond's song, "Brooklyn Roads," talks about "the report card I was afraid to show." His teacher's words, "He's got a good head if he'd just apply it," echo the refrain heard so often at parent-teacher conferences: "Johnny is just not working up to his potential."

And what is the typical response to that refrain? Does anyone ask Johnny why he isn't interested in learning what is being presented to him? Would they listen to his answers with attention and respect? Would they make adjustments?

I am a teacher, a mother, a grandmother. I see the light in my newborn grandson's eyes and wonder what will happen to that light as he goes through school. Will he learn to sit in rows, to answer the questions at the end of the chapter, to study for state tests, to compete for grades? Will he figure out that learning is about getting the right answer, not about asking probing questions? Will he measure out the minutes in the classroom until the bell rings? Will he learn not to speak out of turn?

Look at any toddler as he or she touches, tastes, and experiences the world. Listen to the endless "Why?" questions of a 3-year-old. Is that curiosity still alive at 10, 13, 16? If not, why not? Who extinguishes it? They don't. We do.

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It is the sacred responsibility of parents and teachers to identify how that spark can be nurtured in each child. And it is different for each child.

Those who have been officially deemed "learning disabled" get specialized professional attention. Not enough, perhaps, but the policies, procedures, and tax money are in place for them, and the system tries to accommodate. The ones I worry about are the mavericks, the discipline problems, the underachievers, the "great unwashed." These are the kids who don't conform. They don't care about becoming Homecoming Queen; in fact, that whole scene may strike them as being somewhat ludicrous and trivial. For many of them, both culturally and temperamentally, competition is not a motivator.

Perhaps they prefer to work collaboratively. Maybe talking about it helps them learn. Or, maybe they need to make a personal connection to the topic before they have any desire to pursue it. In some cases, concepts and abstractions may make their eyes glaze over. They may simply need to learn by doing. If you want to be a sculptor, do you read about it, or do you need to work with the clay? Kids whose very breath of life depends on opportunities to experience hands-on learning are suffocated in the world of passive note taking and written tests.

Where are the tests that measure the creativity and learning of such students? Consistently, they come up short on the standard measures of achievement, and thus the downward cycle begins. They get the designated "not working up to his or her potential" label and are placed accordingly. School becomes a pressure cooker for them, and home becomes a hostile environment as parents assume the role of warden in order to enforce the requirements the school imposes.

In many cases, these are among the most gifted, creative kids in school. Many times they are the ones who make others uncomfortable by asking "Why?" And what do they hear in response? "Because I said so." "So that you can pass." "So you can get into middle school, high school, college."

"Why" kids aren't motivated by those answers. Without motivation, they daydream, procrastinate, act out, and drop out. A cycle of blame is set up. Parents may support the system, ground the child, put the kid on Ritalin, or give up in despair.

In any case, no one looks at the root cause. Neil Diamond put his poor report card to good use, but in many cases the child experiences a cycle of failure. As Sancho Panza says in Man of La Mancha, "Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it's bad for the pitcher."

Dee Montalbano, of Boulder, is a retired English teacher, teacher of teachers, writing specialist, and communication consultant to corporations and professional firms.

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